Single-Site Order in Alberta Must Be EnforcedCOVID-19 cases in health and seniors' care are exploding in Alberta. As of November 18, there were outbreaks in 12 acute care hospitals and 102 continuing-care facilities and there are 1,254 residents and 465 staff with active cases. A total of 3,162 Alberta health-care workers have been infected since the pandemic began and 296 long-term care home residents have died. Health care unions and workers have called for the government and Alberta Health Services to take control of the privately owned and operated seniors' homes. Full-time positions at one site, additional pay for all long-term care workers, adequate personal protective equipment, increased staffing, and no staff reductions or layoffs have been urgently needed since the pandemic began.
"The government introduced the rule in April because it was seen as a vital tool to save lives and prevent the spread of COVID-19 between continuing-care facilities," says Susan Slade, Vice-President of AUPE. "Continuing-care operators are abandoning this rule because they cannot find enough workers to care for the residents. Employers are begging our members to work at second sites to relieve the staffing crisis created by so many workers getting infected or having to isolate. They are being told they can move between sites with outbreaks and without outbreaks if they are not symptomatic, even though we know that the virus can be spread by people without symptoms." "Workers are receiving desperate pleas from employers to volunteer to work at multiple sites. They are being asked to go into facilities where the virus is rampant and then to return to their original site, with no period of isolation, and risk spreading the virus further," she says. Slade says: "Dr. Hinshaw and the Alberta government must answer this question: If the single-site rule was saving lives before, how many Albertans in continuing care will die with it being abandoned? We have nine exemptions in one week. How many will it be next week?" "Our members are scared and exhausted, but they are doing everything they can to care for residents, but putting this burden entirely on their shoulders will not work," says Slade. "This is not sustainable, and yet we see no leadership from the government on how to tackle this staffing and care crisis." (Photo: Unifor)
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The
single site order for long-term care was created to prevent the spread
of COVID-19 in continuing-care facilities. It limited health care
workers to work at only one long-term or continuing-care site. The
order is now on the verge of collapse in the midst of a staffing
crisis, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) said in a
November 12 news release. In only one week, Alberta Health gave nine
continuing-care sites exemptions to the single-site rule, including six
private for profit sites (three owned by Revera), and three run by
"not-for-profit" operators.